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Hello, fellow crafters! Since January is the traditional month of reorganization AND great storage sales at the craft and office supply stores, I wanted to share some of my craft storage tips. I’ve been wrestling with getting this post done for longer than I’d care to admit, but I got an e-mail from one of you specifically asking about paper storage… Thanks, crafty pal, for the incentive to finally get this post finished!

One note before I start… I am not affiliated with any company mentioned in this post and, unless otherwise noted, bought all of these items on my own (always on sale! lol!). I just mention them because they work for me.

I live in an efficiency apartment, which is NOT an efficient way to craft if you want to eat (with the kitchen counter and stove often covered with current projects) or sleep (as sometimes the boxes are all out and sitting on the bed and have to be put away first if I want to sleep comfortably)! In fact, the only place off-limits to my craft stuff is the bathroom. (TMI, I know!)

So, let’s start with paper storage. The hallway has been lined with some shelves and a few of the Ikea Trones shoe storage cabinets that I got on sale.

These bins tilt out and are the perfect size for storing specialty papers! You can fit two 110# 8.5″x11″ stacks side by side or 12″x12″ paper pads with 6″x6″ or 6″x12″ packs beside them (think G45 chipboard or Elizabeth Crafts Shimmer Sheets):

I struggle with scraps. Do you? What I’ve found that works okay is putting them in IRIS 12″x12″ Portable Project cases in my Ikea cabinet. Sometimes you can find them 60% off at craft stores. Being in a closed box keeps the scraps fairly organized (by color) and prevents them from falling out all over the place.

And there’s room on the shelf beside them for the larger Sizzix and Spellbinders dies or some boxes with 12″x12″ mulberry paper and vellum and some adhesive foam.

Speaking of those large dies… If you save the packaging they come in, it makes great storage for your small ink pads! (You could buy a Stufftainer, but “free” is better!)

Larger pads do fit in there, too…

Before leaving my Ikea Pax wardrobe that fits neatly beside my bed… did you know an ironing board and iron holder fits the end perfectly?! In an efficiency, every inch counts!

The main room of my efficiency is divided off at one end with a set of bookshelves and a desk on the backside… supposedly for bill paying and such, but often overrun with crafting ‘stuff.’ I can spin my chair around to the desk behind me that is dedicated to crafting that looks out onto the patio. Against the wall are a pair of Sterilite drawers. The bigger drawers hold, among other things, my rainbow of 65# letter-sized paper:

The best storage I have found for stamps are 9L Really Useful Boxes. I have found them on sale (and, occasionally on clearance) at Office Depot and Staples. Most stamp sets that are 8.75″x5.5″ or less will fit on their sides in their original packaging (= no need to go through the time & expense of putting them in a different, often larger holder that is so popular, nor label it) and larger stamps can sit on top.

What I like about these boxes is that they stack nicely and are lightweight, so I can easily move them to get to the box I need without straining. Also, they’re see-through… I put a piece of paper on the inside telling me what manufacturers are in the box.

For red rubber stamps like the older Kraftin’ Kimmie, Quietfire Design and Unity Stamp Co., I put them on 8.5″ x11″ Crafter’s Companion EZMount Lightweight stamp storage panels. They have holes to go into a 3 ring binder, but I find they fit perfectly in the 9L Really Useful Boxes, with a little room to spare at one end. I stamp the whole sheet onto a sheet of copy paper to be able to easily see what stamps are on the sheet:

Now, let’s take a peek at my 29.5″x29″x11.75″ bookshelf that I got second hand. I took some lace from Joann, backed it with a solid and made a curtain that matches my home decor. It’s on a little tension rod and keeps the unsightly out of sight:

On the bottom shelf are my ArtBins for dies. Dies that match stamps, I store with the stamps. Universal dies, like basic shapes, coverplates, words and letters are stored on magnetic sheets in ArtBins. I have found the magnetic sheets super cheap at Create and Craft and got the bins on clearance at JoAnn.

On the top shelf of my bookshelf I have two of the 9L Really Useful Boxes with divider inserts. One has my embossing powders and equipment and the other has my watercolors like Daniel Smith DuoChrome and Ken Oliver’s Color Bursts:

The other side of the top shelf on my bookcase has some Tiny Container Bead Storage Trays and Assorted Bead Storage Trays by Bead Storage Solutions (found at JoAnn or Amazon) and used to store sequins, seed beads, and googly eyes. They come with labels so you can keep track of what’s what to know what to re-order. I like the clear plastic top that holds everything in place, but still lets you see what’s inside.

Let’s see, one more tip – Ribbon storage. A long time ago I got this useful tip for ribbon storage… wrapping ribbon around small cards of mat board (for matting pictures) and securing them with a rubber band. Time consuming, but it REALLY cuts down on space as those spools waste LOTS of space. HOWEVER, learn from my mistake: don’t wind your ribbon too tight or you’ll end up with kinks that need to be ironed like you see in the pink ribbon I’ve laid out.

Another ribbon storage alternative: I won this Ribbon Box from The Original Scrapbox (Oh, how I’d love to have one of those incredible Scrapboxes! It’s like a crafting area you can close up into a wardrobe. So cool! A girl can dream!). I’m not fond of the fabric and intend to recover it some day. You have to get used to not pulling out too much ribbon if you don’t want the fussy hassle of trying to re-wind it back onto the spool and re-thread it through the holes. That said, it is quite useful! Right now I have 66 spools stored in that 13″x13″x5″ box!

Ok, dear crafters, I hope you found some useful tips and wish you the best in organizing your crafty space! Who knows, maybe I’ll get the rest of my space organized and let you peek in on it in the future, too.

Have a lovely week!

~D.Ann

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Hello, crafty friends! I have a fun stamping project to show you today, but not stamping on paper. I decided to try something NEW. I found a sweet, plain poly-cotton lace top and wanted to gussy it up for my mom. So I pulled out my Altenew floral stamps and looked at their January 2019 Inspiration Challenge for, well, inspiration as to where to start with colors:

Those colors are right up mom’s alley, so I gathered up the Altenew stamp sets I thought would work (four of which were brand NEW! (New AletNEW for the SSS Mon. & Weds. Something NEW challenges! LoL!)) and started laying out the stamps to get a idea of how I wanted to place them, and decided a cascade from the right shoulder down to the left waist would look nice…

I placed a thick rubber stamping pad inside the shirt to protect the backside from any bleed-though (there wasn’t any) and to help get a good impression from the stamps. I used the top of the MISTI stamping tool to pick up as many of the stamps as I could and moved the others away. Then loaded up the stamps with ink, flipped the lid the opposite way from usual and held my breath…

This was my first time using the NEW Brutus Monroe Surface Inks that I had purchased for this project and a couple of other ideas I have in my pile of whims. They’re supposed to be permanent once heat set. I sure hope so!!!

The impressions were light, but there. As the fabric stuck to the stamps and lifted, I was afraid to re-stamp them and have them slightly off.

I continued until I had the design I wanted complete…

Now the hard part… I used paint brushes and picked up the ink off the inkpads to paint the flowers. Painting on cloth with ink is VERY different than painting on paper! Some results I was quite pleased with the depth I was able to achieve…

Others, turned out a hot mess…

Fortunately, I was able to stamp over it with a darker color and got a more natural look…

At this point, I ironed the entire piece. First I used paper towels to protect from bleeding, but nothing came off, so I took them off and ironed again. I’ll come back and edit this post if mom has any trouble with the ink bleeding when she washes it.

To jazz up the butterfly and hummingbird, I put down some Fabri-tac fabric glue and covered it with crystal glitter that picks up the colors beneath…

I really didn’t feel like masking when I stamped them out and that left too much white space. I had thought to use rhinestones, but they were too heavy. Instead, I used the smallest of the halftone circles to fill in between the flowers. From a distance it just looks like part of the greenery.

Hello, sweet peeps! I know this has been a nearly unprecedented streak of posting, but I’m almost caught up with the backlog, and then we’ll get back to my ‘whenever the whim hits’ pattern. : )

Today I have a fun card — it’d be great for a BFF’s engagement party, don’t you think?!

All the stamps and dies I used to make this were new to me and I love how they go together! Remember back when I played with Pebeo Fantasy paints for the first time back in THIS post? (good grief, it’s been almost a year! I told you I was backlogged!! At that time I also tried some on paper thinking they’d be cool for a mermaid’s tail. I was right! This was the result:

I outlined it first with Pebeo Vitrail Glitter Medium and let it dry, then filled it with the Pebeo Prisme paints which hold their own and don’t mix into brown as green and purple normally would. As they dry, they for these fabulous cell ‘scales’!

Embossing the lines of the clam shell and puffing up the pillow with a stylus, like the Heartfelt Creations Flower Shaping Essentials tool, helps give it dimension!:

Here’s a close-up of that cute little seahorse:

Now that I know the Pebeo Prisme paints work so well, I need to make a whole set of mermaid cards!

I know you’ve seen these cool party favor boxes before, but this time I did something new – I put the sentiment inside the lid. I like the surprise of the recipients opening them and being doubly surprised! I did a batch of 24 for the party, but you get the idea with just these 4:

Hello! Since winter in Florida means one can finally do things outdoors without sweating buckets, the whim has taken me to a much needed re-upholstery job… the armrest in my car desperately needed recovering… UGH!

Of course, it was over 10 years old and the previous owner had dogs. The question was… would I be able to do it?

Let’s take it apart and see… a few screws later reveals just some fabric tucked around the frame with a light foam batting.

I went to JoAnn Fabrics and found a soft faux leather remnant, then traced the old piece with a sharpie on the back of the fabric and cut it out.

I placed down the new batting and stretched the faux leather over the frame, using E6000 adhesive on the under side. Some binder clips secured it in place while drying.

Screw it back in and voilà – a brand new soft and comfy arm rest that’s easy to clean!

Have you been thinking about trying something like this? If I can do it, you can, too!

~D.Ann

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p.s. any ads on this page are placed by WordPress and are not endorsed by me.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since I’ve posted something! lol! Let’s hope this year is better for all of us! To help get it started off right, today’s post is going to be a bit different from my usual crafting posts. This past May I made some adjustments to my diet that helped me lose 40 pounds in four months. Then life’s circumstances kept me from sticking to it for the past three months. Fortunately, despite that, I’m only up 2 pounds. Now that life has calmed down some, I’m ready to knuckle down and lose the last bit of my excess baggage. Since I know many of you are trying to be good, too, I thought I’d share a fun diet tip with you. I know, using “diet” and “fun” in the same sentence is a major juxtaposition, but you’ll see what I mean soon enough.

Disclaimer: this post is in no way to be considered medical information and you should consult your doctor before following any dieting advice. (Although this is very true, you’re going to chuckle when you see what that advice is!)

If you’re like me, you might have grown up around folks who always kept a candy jar on hand ‘for company.’ I loved visiting family members that had those jars when I was a kid and now I keep one myself – only it somehow seems to run out of chocolates more often than I have company to share it! So I made up a sign to put on the candy jars.

Before I show it to you, I will preface this with a disclaimer… For those of you that know me as a Bible Study teacher, know that I work hard to make sure that what I teach is accurate and never taken out of context. This, however, is most definitely taken out of context and is totally just for fun, ok?! So here’s the sign (from above)…

Just in case you don’t have your Bible handy, here is what Colossians 2:21 says:

“Do not handle, nor taste, nor touch”

Hahahaha! A dainty reminder of a stern order. Of course, this was not originally intended to keep one away from chocolates, but it sure does make me smile! I did it in ombre red to subliminally indicate STOP.

If this makes you smile, too, and you want to use it but don’t have the gumption to letter your own sign, nor to use Paint Shop or another program to make up your own sign, I’ve created a free .jpg digi you are welcome to save and print out for your personal use. All I ask is that if you post it on your blog or on social media, please link back to this blog post, ok? Thanks! Come back here and leave me a comment if you do and I’ll try to visit your post. Have fun!

Here we are with another year having passed… where did it go?!! It was another rough year health-wise with that horrid 3 month migraine, then my surgery, and helping the folks after dad’s surgery. Health and family first = less crafting time. I was pleased to see I still managed to publish 63 posts during the year. I still have a few queued up as drafts that I just haven’t been able to finish off… hopefully I’ll get caught up this coming year.

There were over 2.570 visitors to this blog from 67 countries this year, including the 79 of you who are followers. And they kindly took the time to leave over 860 comments. Thank you all for your encouraging support! I promise not to bother your inbox any more this year. : )

I was pleased that a couple of my creations received special recognition this year…

Here are the three blog posts that got the most comments from you sweeties. If you missed any and want to see the post, just click on the pic:

You’ll notice they’re kitty themes… Us cat lovers tend to be vociferous! >^.^< Of course the Cat Lovers Hop falls in October and that’s always the month I get the most visitors. There’s some adage about ‘birds of a feather,’ but I reckon cats go FURther! : )

And, the only non-paper craft project to draw top attention from y’all:

On Instagram I was amazed to hit 250 followers and have 2391 likes on my 77 posts there this year. Here are the top 9 with the most likes from y’all (22% of the total!)… actually there are 10, as the last two tied, so I squeezed them into one frame. : )

If you missed any of these and would like to see the posts, just click the link on the pictures below:

I was floored to find out that, in the almost 4 years (coming up in March) that I’ve been posting on this blog, the 362 posts had 9,384 visitors from 92 countries. Once again, I cannot thank you all enough for your generous support of my crafting adventures! I’m looking forward to seeing where the whim takes me next year and having you come along with me on the journey!

Hugs,

~D.Ann

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p.s. any ads on this page are placed by WordPress and are not endorsed by me.

I really wanted to do something nice for my USPS postal carrier this year as she always trudges up to my apartment when there are packages rather than just leave them down at the mailboxes. She even asked about them one day as she saw they were art related and her teenage daughter is getting into arts & crafts. I know thy’re going to have a party when they get this as they LOVE chocolates!

I have been wanting to use the Neat & Tangled Truck die (thanks Miriam!!) but life has been so hectic, this was my first chance to pull it out. It’s darling and easy to put together the main truck. All the optional add-ons – especially those blinker lights – are a bit tiny for my big mits, tho. : ) I also wanted to wrap up a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates extra elegantly. I’ve never used a die cut to wrap something before, but I thought the Neat & Tangled Doily Envelope die would make a gorgeous way to wrap it up… I was right! Check out the gift ensemble:

The card is a shaker. I framed it up with the edges of the Doily Envelope Die to tie the ensemble all together.

The envelope is lined with the same embossed wrapping paper as I used to wrap the chocolates. The truck opens up and holds tiny presents… in this case, a single Ferrero Rocher Chocolate! (hmm… now that I look at it, I think I’ll add some tissue paper in there to cushion it.)

It was a fun set to make I know she’s going to get a kick out of it! I can’t wait to make more of those adorable trucks – probably in UPS brown next time!!

Surprise! Didn’t think I’d make it back again this year, but here I am! It’s anniversary party time (their 54th!) and I have a cool fairy tale tunnel card to share with you with some fun references from The Princess Bride!

The extra grass on the prince and princess’s levels was done by partially die cutting with a grass die. After it was put together I wanted to add the As You Wish sentiment, so I embossed it on acetate. Princess Bride fans know “As You Wish” means, “I love you!” Not a Princess Bride fan? INCONCEIVABLE!! (That means the rest of us are laughing at you right now! Lol!) I added the Happily Ever After after it was together, too.

This was my first time playing with these dies and I wasn’t sure how to color them. I started out with Aqua Blend pencils, but I wasn’t satisfied with the results (guess I need more practice!), so I went right over them with alcohol markers, which added to the shading and I was happier. Then I added a bunch of ‘gilding’ with some metallic markers and a Sparkle pen.

This was my first time using a concertina fold (the sides) to put together a tunnel card. Not as easy as it looks and hard to keep it from warping = I need more practice!!

Well, the picture of the back looked fine on my phone, but now it looks blurry. sorry. It’s already in the possession of the happy couple, so here are some of their favorite Princess Bride quotes that I used: “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togever today.” “This is true love – You think this happens every day?” “INCONCEIVABLE!” “Have fun storming the castle!”

Hello! I’m back with that promised jewelry update. I’ve gotten behind on posting a few little jewelry projects I’ve made over the past year, so here they are all together for you to enjoy. Some are re-done from old sets I was given that the metal had changed color, like this set with peach and pastel blue beads:

It was just a matter of replacing the chain.

With this set I found out that plain wire tends to cut into the neck and the cheap gold beads turned quickly.

So I re-did it as my first ever triple tier. The copper makes the peach stones stand out!:

That motivated me to try this a strand of large pearls, shell pieces and peach/pink crystals:

This one came from the clearance rack at Burlington Coat Factory but the top half was metallic, so it got beaded and restrung, too:

I had a couple of strands of semi-precious pieces I brought back from South America. I finally re-strung them intertwined:

And now for some original creations. Just simple beading, with beads from recent 50-70% off sales at the three big box stores nearby (JoAnn, Michaels and Hobby Lobby are all dangerously close!). I really like the beads in each of these – like these orchid and pale green cat’s eye beads!

And I like the greens, yellows and browns of these agate beads:

The facets on these fuchsia and green beads helps them catch the light and sparkle:

I love these natural stones that look like bits of lava:

I’m sure they’re heated to add the extra color, but they’re pretty cool! The other side is a slightly different color scheme:

I’ve had requests for a few more beaded tie chains for men. This blue one was made with vintage beads from the 1920-30s:

Now I’m out of the bases… I need to find someone who sells just the bases, but haven’t been able to find them yet.

Another with amethyst jasper beads:

Ones made with hematite are popular:

Remember the Craft Fantastic jewelry make-n-take? Well, one cousin was away and made hers later. She took her own picture of daffodils (it’s at her house that I always take those lovely daffodil pictures) and I’m amazed at how REAL they look!:

Ok, so the whim took us to jewelry this time. Who knows where it will take us next time? Stay tuned to find out!

D.Ann

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p.s. any ads on this page are placed by WordPress and are not endorsed by me.